This study aims two issues ; one purpose is depicting touching phenomena that are done by a nurse to a patient during the daily care-giving activities in a hospital or in a nurturing facility as well as classifying types of the deeds and clarifying the meaning without separating them from context of nursing and supporting, while another purpose is pursuing nurses' physical knowledge, especially experienced nurses' knowledge that is indispensable in nursing activities with examining the cases from viewpoints of nurses' intention of touching and patients' sensitivities of being touched.From the data result of scrutinizing nurses' touching in total of four facilities of general hospitals in Kobe and in Sapporo, palliative care unit, and senior care unit of a general hospital, we have found that nurses/attendants do eight types of touching activities in daily nursing care, which are for "establishing a relationship", "drawing attention", "observing", "giving a necessary care and/or treatme
… Morent", "making to be comfortable", "assisting and/or guiding", "protecting and preparing", and "making a cordial greeting".Comparing our study with the preceding research data by Botorrof (1993) and Estabrooks (1989) in Canada, it seems that several points obviously agree with them : "establishing a relationship", "drawing attention", and " making a cordial greeting", correspond to "connecting touch" and "social touch" by Botorrof, and "caring touch" by Estabrooks ; "observing" and "giving a necessary care and/or treatment" to "working touch" by Botorrof and "task-oriented touch" by Estabrooks ; "making to be comfortable" to "comforting touch" by Botorrof, and "caring touch" by Estabrooks ; "assisting and/or guiding" and "protecting and preparing" to "orienting touch" by Botorrof and "task-oriented touch", & "protective touch" by Estabrooks.The result of our study indicates that touching types in our country are very similar to those elucidated in the preceding research, and are categorized in eight (8) different styles probably because of delicate nuances of Japanese language.As for the study we performed to nurses who are considered to be experts, we have found that an expert nurse creates a total image of caring processes of a patient prior to the treatment, which is shown explicitly in their explaining words and attitudes. Particularly in touching, unnecessary actions or conversations are not included, and it is apparently characteristic that expert nurses know exactly what is the next step and/or what will happen next as they supervise the overall and extensive situation, so that they can afford to give reliable words and treatments to a patient. It is also recognized that expert nurses apply experientially acquired physical knowledge every time they need to make a judgment in giving a care/treatment. Less